The Night Before
by Kare Uta
Summary: Bryan's loss against Ray awakened something inside of him and the night before Tala's match he gives the redhead the best piece of advice. A promise they made kept Tala from making the biggest mistake of his life. Oneshot.


_**The Night Before**_

Tala rolled around in the large hotel room bed. He had to be honest, it was the first comfortable bed he'd been in since he was a child but he was still unable to get some sleep. It was almost three in the morning. The night before his match. Boris had finished up on the nightly experiments and he had to admit that he felt sick to his stomach at this point. Aside from that, he still felt like something was missing and taking one brief look around the dark room he could quite easily tell what that was. Bryan.

The boy used to be insanely silent during the day time but in his sleep you always knew when he was missing because he was known for grumbling and screaming in his sleep. It was the main reason that no one ever wanted to share a room with him. Though since it had been Abbey rules for two people to share a room, somebody had to stay with Bryan. Mostly Tala had just lost a forgotten bet, but he didn't mind sharing a room with the other all that much, even though his character really did set him off on many occasions.

It had been hours since Bryan had lost his battle against Ray and the redhead still couldn't help the tinge of an uncertain feeling in his heart at the boy's late absence. He wasn't sure if Boris had beaten him to death, kept him at the Abbey for the night or if Bryan had managed to sneak away from the hotel and escape. As lovely as that last one sounded, he knew it couldn't have been true. With a win or a loss, Boris would still have kept a close eye on him after his match.

He knew he should have been getting more sleep before his own match; thinking that whatever fate Bryan was suffering was the fate he'd also suffer if he didn't win his battle early the next day but he couldn't bring himself to fall asleep until the other boy was there.

As if on cue the door opened, the sharp bright light from the hallway shining into the room as the figure stepped inside before the light entirely dissipated when the door closed again. Tala, having been lying on his stomach, arched his back as he propped himself up on his elbows, looking back as the figure kicked his shoes off by the door. "Bryan?" he asked into the darkness.

No reply came but passing in front of the balcony he could see the familiar figure passing and sitting down in an armchair in the corner. By the way he sat, legs up on the seat, hunched over, his arms on his knees and buried in between, Tala assumed that the boy was having a breakdown of some sort, though reminding himself that it wasn't something that Bryan ever did. The redhead stilled his movements when he readjusted himself to look at the boy, listening properly for the sound of a whimper or a sob, anything to understand what it was the other was feeling.

"Bryan?" He still made absolutely no reaction to his name being called out and the older boy was further unsure if that was a good or bad thing, not understanding anything when it came to the other at the present time.

Tala made his way over to the other boy to see if he was hurt; Bryan had the common tendency to never tend to his wounds once he was beaten by Boris, he'd just sit and hope the bleeding stopped by itself. As stupid as it sounded, Tala could see the logic in the boy's actions; if he couldn't live past the beating then it wasn't worth living at all, as life was filled with beatings such as those. He set a hand on the boy's shoulder to move closer and embrace him as an act of comfort but the younger boy instantly raised his head, glaring furiously and shouting, "Don't touch me!"

He wasn't sure exactly how he'd forgotten it but Bryan was quite known for hitting people when they tried to touch him. Fortunately all Boris' paranoia of losing had a bright side to it; it meant that Tala was almost always prepared and quite unbreakable when it came to a hit.

As the silence in the room progressed, the two glared at each other mildly in the dark as Tala continued to hold onto the offensive forearm that still formed a fist, he could see the anger draining from the other's features and was slowly being replaced by an emotion he couldn't quite comprehend. He was calming down relatively quickly, never quite having seen that much relaxation on his face; Bryan was always far too tense to ever actually look relaxed by anything.

The older boy still couldn't tell if Bryan was actually as harmless as he looked at a time like this or if Boris had taught him a few new tricks about just looking innocent but he finally let go of the arm, the fist having relaxed anyway. He sighed, reaching out again and brushing the strands of hair from Bryan's sweating forehead; a fever was well in the works, either he'd been out in the cold for too long or Boris had decided to teach him a lesson by injecting something venomous into him. Bryan had flinched weakly and turned his head at the kind gesture, at least not throwing as much of a tantrum as he usually would, just cussing quietly and without any real bitterness in his tone.

For just a moment Tala could see that most memorable emotion flash across Bryan's features a few times before it finally stayed there. Fear. He feared something. Punishment maybe? He still didn't understand any of this though! One minute the boy was shoving him away and yelling at him and then the next fear was forming itself on features that hadn't felt such an emotion in a while and then to further confuse him, Bryan leaned forward, having grabbed the hem of Tala's nightshirt in his hand and pressing his hot soaking forehead against the firm stomach.

To this day Tala couldn't quite grasp why crying was so awful and so unheard of to people in the Abbey. He'd always assumed that everyone did it when Boris wasn't around to make them stop it but never, not once, had he ever seen Bryan break down. Not even now, when it was as crumpled and as broken as he'd ever seen him, did he break down in tears. He was shaking, shivering helplessly and yet not for a second would he let a whimper or tear escape his safely guarded emotions. Tala couldn't help but think that things for the boy would be so much easier if he just cried about it; at least it'd be some form of a release.

It wasn't like the boy didn't have a good reason to cry. He'd lost his battle, he'd probably just experienced a truck-load of emotional abuse from Boris, the guards probably dragged him around far too much and now he was burning a fever of about 102. A fever that high was bad for everyone but for Abbey bladers it seemingly always felt worse. A fever that high on a teenager in the Abbey always felt like a fever that high on a baby; the pain is unbearable, the feelings that it sends through you drives you insane, you can't sleep, you can't eat without feeling sick and you just want to cry until your whole body dries out. Bryan was quite clearly only making it more difficult on himself by _not_ crying.

Tala wrapped his muscular arms around Bryan's back, rubbing it and hoping to soothe the uncomfortable trembling somehow. He was unsure of what was wrong with the boy and what had transpired since he'd last seen him and without ever actually having experience in comforting anyone but himself, he didn't quite know what to do to help the poor thing. "Bryan, what happened? Did Boris hurt you?"

There was no reply again, just more silence as he still wasn't even met with a sob or cry. Although, in reaction to the question, the boy's small hand did grab at Tala's shirt a little tighter, grabbing a fistful of the material and causing the redhead to pull closer.

"Bryan...please, tell me what happened." Tala pulled at the boy helplessly, trying to act as some sort of foundation for the insistently shaking boy.

"I almost killed someone!!"

Was that what this was all about? The actual battle? Of course he'd almost killed someone; half the country knew that! Had it just settled in? After all, the order had been quite plain and simple when Boris told Bryan to do it, he didn't get how it had taken it this long to all factor in for him. "Well yeah," he started quietly, "it was the order you were given."

"I heard the paramedics…After a battle with me…I've never heard a survival rate that low before." His breathing hitched further, chest expanding in deep unmanageable breaths, "I'm a monster for what I did to him!"

"If you were a monster then you would've killed him right away. If you were a monster then you wouldn't be feeling guilty now. Besides, you were only doing what you were asked to." Tala could hear the boy about to protest with another outburst but began to pull away from him, keeping his hands firmly on his shoulders, "You shouldn't be like this now. What's done is done; feeling sorry about it isn't going to change it."

Bryan sat back in the seat, wiping the traces of emotions from his face. "You're right."

Tala turned around to Bryan's bed, turning down the sheets and adjusting the pillows, "Get into bed, lie back and try to relax. Your fever is dangerously high." Tala went into the bathroom, glancing out to make sure that Bryan had followed his order; he had and Tala proceeded with looking through the cupboards in the bathroom. "No wonder Boris let us stay in the hotel; the beds are comfortable but they came with a price…No antipyretics."

"I'll be fine without one." Bryan insisted, crawling beneath the sheets and trying to make himself comfortable.

Tala shook his head; he knew better. Bryan was just trying to act tough. "I'll get dressed and go downstairs. The reception desk is bound to have something."

"I said I'll be fine!" The younger exclaimed furiously. Watching the defeated expression on the redhead's features he tried to calm down again. "There are two guards at the end of the hall and they fit right in; if they see you leaving they'll ask where you're going, if you tell them the antipyretic is for you then they can tell you're lying, if you tell them it's for me then they surely won't let you."

Bryan was mostly right about that. He was able to comprehend that at first he just didn't want to be treated like a child but now he realized that he did have a point. There was no way that Boris would let Bryan take any medication to make him feel better, not after the way he'd lost his battle. Feeling helpless, he went over to the mini refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water, loosening the cap to make things easier on Bryan's aching muscles and leaving it on the nightstand where he could reach it.

"Get some sleep, Tala. You need to win your battle tomorrow."

The redhead got into his own bed, lying on his back and occasionally glancing at the other boy. He was having as much trouble getting comfortable as a little baby would when suffering from a fever that bad. Being up this late wasn't going to do his match that much good the next day, yet Tala couldn't bring himself to take his mind off the other male. As he attempted drifting off to sleep, his surroundings being left to be a thin veil, a soft and almost innocent tone cutting through his sleep again. "Tala?"

"Hm?"

"Tomorrow…no matter what Boris orders you to do…Don't take it as far as I did."

"I was never trained to take it as far as you did, Bryan." Tala reminded him in a whisper.

Bryan nodded, turning over and burying his sweaty face in the fresh pillows, "I know but…that's how it started with me. I wasn't trained to kill, but during a battle Boris saw the potential and then the training for it started…"

Tala looked at him strongly, "I won't take it as far as you did." He said determinedly. "I promise."

"I don't believe in promises…but…don't go back on that promise."

"I won't." The boy continued to look in Bryan's direction for the remainder of the time. He opened his mouth to speak, just before he noticed that Bryan was shifting around in complete discomfort. "Bryan,"

Irritability increased by the amount of time he spent moving about. "What?!"

"If…If you want to cry or something, you can. You know? I won't tell anyone…I'll turn around if you want me to."

"I'm not going to cry."

Tala nodded and turned onto his side, giving his back to Bryan to give him some sort of privacy. "Alright but…if you want to, you can." There was no other sound from behind him. "Good night."

_**A/N: A little different from the usual Tala-Bryan friendship oneshots that I write, mostly because this shows that they weren't all that close in the beginning as opposed to my usual writing where I show that they've been close friends since childhood. I also thought that maybe Tala's battle alone wasn't the sole reason that he had emotions and why he didn't win, I thought that maybe something should've factored in earlier. **_

_**Anyways; thanks for reading this far! Please leave a review and keep safe everyone.**_


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